


the sound she makes

by Something Blue (clarademeanor)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Doubt, Gen, Hurt, Intrusive Thoughts, Self-Harm, Stream of Consciousness, ambiguous elements, bad stuff, cosmic horror, eldritch horror, psychological drama/horror, something unknowable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 18:06:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17944559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarademeanor/pseuds/Something%20Blue
Summary: Jennifer tells herself that the problems are all in her mind.God, she hopes so.





	the sound she makes

It takes a while, but eventually Jennifer is convinced that her parents aren’t real.

_She had wondered soon after if her entire world was some kind of simulation (like in the movies) but that thought was quickly dismissed._  
_Her teachers, friends, even strangers all had that genuine living-ness that she was fairly certain could not be replicated._  
_The same was not true for her parents._

_They laughed, spoke, smiled at her- but that was all. They never seemed to do anything if she was not there to hear about it beforehand._  
_They would smile wide, show many pearly teeth, and say, “Jen, I’m just going to the store. Be back in a few.” And that was what happened. Every time._  
_They never left without telling her._  
_They were always still in the corner of her eyes, but moved quite naturally when she turned to look. Too naturally- they never fumbled or tripped. They never seemed to frown._

Jen watches them do the dishes together, and worries. She thinks back to her earliest memory- about eight months ago.  
_She left for school in the morning, and came home in the afternoon. An ordinary day._  
_Her parents were there to greet her._

Before that, there is nothing. She tries so hard sometimes to make herself remember anything before, but there is only blank space.

Jen still goes to school every day. She has many friends, all with their trends and their parties, and their hookings-up.  
She does not feel like an outcast. There is nothing to be upset about because there is nothing to remember. So she does not think, and it is easy, so easy, easier than it should have been.

She wakes up the next morning, and stares into her mirror. She half hopes that her other self will reach through and take her away to somewhere she understands.

She remembers thinking at one point, a few weeks prior, that her reflection always seemed a step behind her real movements, but that was an eternity ago, and is a thought for the easy-not-to-think pile.

She makes a face at herself in the mirror, and for a moment she imagines herself smiling, like her parents- but her teeth are far greater in number.

Jen shakes her head to clear the thought away.

Stray feelings and images often spring up from somewhere deep in her brain- or even outside. She does not always recognise them for what they are.

Jen remembers, feeling the sourness rise in her throat, that she had once watched a girl she did not know in chemistry class for twelve minutes straight, and only later realised that she had been imagining.... _What_ exactly?

She had wanted to reach out and destroy- no, no- obliterate- _erase_ her.

To remove that innocent stranger from existence, wholly and completely.

But that was stupid, and impossible. And- _no more. No more of that thought._  
Jen coughs and spits a sour glob of saliva into the sink. Disgusting.

_No more._

She showers like she does every day, though she cannot ever remember being dirty in her life. Not even a speck of dust- but this is not a conscious effort.

She leaves the house- her parents bid her farewell with their hollow, fake words. They come from hollow bodies, empty and devoid of blood.

_Who are you, Jen, and what are you doing here?_

There is a word for her, itching at the back of her throat like the sweet taste of copper, but if it exists she cannot begin to think of how to say it.

 

School is the same as always. Everything in her life is the same every day. _She almost…_

_No. That’s ridiculous._

She tries very hard to bury the thought before it occurs- but when she sees her peers scurry to their classes in droves, something in her perception shifts.  
Then they are like the lowliest insects conceivable, all going unimportant places for unimportant reasons. They could be squashed with only the slightest movement.

_She does not want to feel better than anyone. Better feels worse._

Sometimes she feels so strange- her mind will leave where she sits and go elsewhere. It feels like daydreaming, but also like her body is being torn to pieces.

_you want them, don’t you, your little playthings, running around trying to get nowhere fast, oh you feel glad, watching them run, you fucking_ thing, _you_

 

_No. God, no. Not this. She is a- she is here. Everything is real. Everything is real-_

 

Jen is popular at school. It was easy, getting people to like her- she spoke and everyone around her would laugh.  
(She laughed too, but the sound was always hollow.)  
Her friends, (and they are real people, she knows they are, so maybe she’s the one who isn’t real) crowd around and talk about their families; how they irritate them. Jen sits and pretends to understand.

There are other things, too- feelings and sentiments she cannot relate to.  
For example- she sits and eats three times every day, but not because she is ever hungry. She puts the food in her mouth, and tastes it, most definitely, but it feels wrong. She never looks forward to it, nor does she dislike it. It just is. Everything is.

She _wants_ to want it. Why can’t she want this? She needs it- she must, since she is a living thing.

Jen has been and felt hurt, many times, she supposes. She has stubbed her toes and hit her elbows on table edges. The pain was there, but even that feels like an afterthought.  
She supposes, also, that she has bled before, though she cannot recall even a single instance.  
_Of course you’ve bled. Who hasn’t? This is fucking stupid, there is nothing- nothing to think about._

That wasn’t true. She sits there and allows the unwanted thoughts to drift.  
She doesn’t understand how none of this had ever occurred to her before. These feelings are not new, and yet they have only been called to her attention recently.  
It isn’t fair.

She wants something to hurt her, really and truly. She wants something to make her sick.  
That is an awful thing to want, but this thought is not one that leaps to her mind unbidden. She thinks it deliberately.

There is a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide in her bathroom cabinet.  
She unscrews the cap. The medical smell fills her nostrils.

She lifts the bottle to her lips, and suppresses the urge to take a shaky breath. What will it matter?

She does, however, reassure herself that this is going to be worth the pain, just to feel something real and genuine. _It’s going to be worth it. It’s going to be._

(She knows it isn’t going to work.)

She tilts her head back, letting the chemical slip down her throat. It burns, she feels it, but it does not feel like a burn of pain. It should have. She knows it should have.

She does not stop to catch her breath (no point) and only when the large bottle is empty does she wonder if this may kill her.  
But she immediately knows this isn’t true, somehow- she thinks to herself that she cannot die any more than the space between stars.

_Typical. Egotistical teenaged bitch-_

No. That needs to be put away. That- that isn’t-

She stops her thought. She has given the chemical a moment. She is now ready to experience unpleasantness in full.  
She waits the expected time.  
Nothing happens.  
She lets out a small scream of frustration, furious at the lack of reaction caused by the chemical that is currently sloshing to a rest inside her.

There is nothing after; no delayed reaction, nothing. There has never been _anything_.  
Jen sits and watches television, not really seeing anything, and feels _fine_.  
She retires to bed early, sleeping on a stomach full of what should have been poison.  
She wakes up- still healthy, still incomplete.

Jen isn’t doing this to hurt herself.  
She only wants to experience something unpleasant- perhaps to confirm that she can feel, perhaps to understand what her friends mean when they speak about their pain.  
That’s all. It’s going to help her feel better. That’s all.

This is what she drones over and over in her head as she reaches for one of the kitchen knives.  
She thinks only those words- she must not allow any others in, or she will begin to doubt. She closes her eyes.  
The knife slides a few inches across her flesh. She feels it. It is not pain, but perhaps she will give it time.

She looks down.

There is a shallow, bloodless laceration in her arm.  
She does not bleed.  
Jen waits for the seep of red.  
It does not come.

She doesn’t bleed. She should, and she does not.

_You aren’t real, are you? You’re some sort of fucking_ thing _, aren’t you?_

_No. No, no, no, no._

She was, wasn’t she. Something made up, invented by some sort of mad god.

The remains of the hydrogen peroxide burble in her stomach.

 

Jen sits on the kitchen stool, not bothering to turn around as her parents (God only knows who or what they are) arrive home, at the exact same time they always did.

They are all smiles, as usual, all _Nice to see you honey, how was school?_

(She hadn’t gone to school. She knew they wouldn’t care. She doubts they can.)

They are still speaking to her, as she grinds her teeth and does her best to block out any unwanted thoughts. It becomes harder and harder- soon she will be forced to surrender.

_They are still. Fucking. Talking._

She makes a sound- it contains every emotion she feels or is unable to experience. It comes out as a strangled, venomous hiss.

“Shut up,” she snarls at the things in front of her. _Why did she let this- she shouldn’t have-_

“Honey-”

No. “Go away,” she screams at them, like a child.  
_I don’t want you. I shouldn’t have._  
_I don’t want you anymore._

She faces away from them. They aren’t real, but neither is she, none of them, just a group of _empty, bloodless bodies, but-_  
She turns back. Her parents are gone.

She blinks in shock. Where have they gone?  
The space where they had been is now void. There is no air there, no matter.

Only the space between stars.

_Just as well. She should never have made them._

It took only a moment for the latest unwanted thought to sink in.  
_No. nonononononono-_  
It wasn’t true. Her brain, it- it made things up, all the time. It said things that weren’t true- to make her miserable. Yes. It was only to make her unhappy.  
(No matter how desperately she attempts to tell herself this, her brain has latched onto the new thought.)

_You made them, didn’t you?_  
_You made them and then un-made them._  
_Erased them._

Jen ran outside.  
She was in her socks- they soaked up the spring shower wetness. It was of no consequence.  
They were gone. She had un-made them. By accident.

It is evening, and the surroundings should have been obscured by darkness, but Jen could see as if it were day.  
The light… where did it come from?

The poisonous barbs still sat, piercing the sides of that thought.

_I know what you are. You aren’t real. You are even better._

(Shut up.)

_Fly away, Jennifer. You ought to leave this behind._

(SHUT UP!)

The last rays of the sun disappeared from the horizon.

_She didn’t want to be here_  
_She didn’t want to be here_  
_She didn’t want to be here_  
_She didn’t want to be here-_

_But of course! So obvious. How had she never thought before?_  
Jen suddenly smiles, wide and toothy, up at the sky. She does not need to crawl in the dust, to suffer. She can make everything right with herself. She can _leave._

_And leave she does._

Jen is going.  
She has memories of this place now. Of this realness. She will hold them.  
Let it be known that one of the oldest ones now has a name. She is not sure how it was chosen for her, or by whom, but she will hold it dear.  
(Such is not the nature of an older one, but she is more than that. She is Jen, who was real for a time.)  
She smiles while she still possesses a face.

Then, as the sourceless light surrounding her got brighter and brighter,  
the grass around her feet withered and died,  
and the fabric of all things folded in on itself for a moment, Jennifer left.


End file.
